


Locked Away

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [325]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Beating, Demon Dean, M/M, Pessimistic, Violence, angsty, s10, s10 thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:10:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8500009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: If Dean got his way, and Sam locked him up in the Bunker once he inevitably turned into a demon once more, Sam forever doomed to be his keeper.





	

It takes Sam four months, one week, and three days to make the tiniest mistake, letting Dean loose.

Dean bides his time, waiting for Sam to not be expecting it, but then he busts out of the broken devil’s trap, then the dungeon, coming after Sam through the Bunker.

“Little Sammy thought he’d lock me up? Keep the world safe from big bad me?” Dean calls through the halls, snorting. “Please. Can’t even protect yourself. Pathetic.”

This time it’s not a hammer. It’s a crowbar Sam had out for doing some repairs to the Bunker–or, as he now sometimes bitterly thinks about it, both his and Dean’s permanent prison. His final resting place. He just didn’t think it would be so soon. He thought he could keep Dean contained longer than this.

Sam’s bloody and beaten half to death by the time Cas manages to respond to Sam’s desperate prayers and get Dean away from Sam. He’s a fully powered angel, but he’s just an angel, and no match for a knight of hell, for the Mark of Cain. Still, Dean’s in a rage and Sam, beaten as he is, is no longer fun sport. It’s not too hard for Cas to lure him through the Bunker, right into another devil’s trap.

From there, he snaps shackles on him and leads him back to the dungeon, locking him back up, triple-checking that everything is secure.

Only then–once the job is complete, once the demon is restrained once more, once they’re all safe–does he go back to Sam, who’s essentially passed out in the hallway.

Cas heals him quickly, then wiping away the blood and cradling Sam to him.

Sam wakes up, eyes fluttering. “Cas?” he asks. Then it comes back to him. “Oh, god,” he says. “Dean…is he?”

“Back where he should be,” Cas says. “It’s taken care of. Now we need to take care of you.”

Sam flexes his muscles experimentally. “I’m fine,” he says. “You fixed me. I’m fine. Everything else is…?”

“Fine,” Cas says. “Taken care of. He’s not going to hurt you again. I won’t let him hurt you again,” Cas says, voice dripping with conviction.

Sam outright laughs, a weak, wheezy sound that nevertheless chills Cas to his vessel’s bones. He pulls Sam a little closer, holds him a little tighter, but it doesn’t help ease the feeling.

“You can’t protect me,” Sam says, voice breaking. “No one–nothing–can. This is…this is my life, now, Cas. I’m here to be his keeper until I die. And I’m a lot more likely to die ‘cause I slipped up than because I reach old age. Hunters don’t get old. Winchesters don’t get old.” He closes his eyes. “Just gotta hope the devil’s traps on the doors hold him, when that happens.”

He opens his eyes suddenly and looks up at Cas, staring him fiercely in the eye. “When that happens, you gotta promise,” he says, voice the strongest it’s been since he’s woken, “you’ll seal off the Bunker. Lock the doors from the outside, throw away the key, whatever. Don’t let him out.” He closes his eyes again. “I…I promised I’d keep him from hurting people.”

Cas holds Sam impossibly tighter at that, at this bleak future he’s tried so hard to ignore. “I can…it won’t…” he tries.

Sam shakes his head. “That’s how it’s gonna be, Cas,” he says. “Just is.”

Cas swallows. He wants to reassure Sam, tell him he won’t let Dean hurt him, that Sam can live a happy and full life, with him, that they’ll make this work out right. But Sam’s right. Things are not going to end happy. Next time, it might not be a crowbar, and Cas might not be fast enough. That’s just how it’s going to be, and eventually, their luck is going to run out.


End file.
